


An Ordinary Day

by Bluewolf458



Series: Days [1]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-29 23:11:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13937451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Nobody knows why, but Jim hates Christmas. And then he's called out when a woman finds her neighbor murdered.





	An Ordinary Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018 sentinel bingo prompt 'Christmas'

An Ordinary Day

By Bluewolf

Two weeks before his first Christmas at the loft, Blair asked Jim what he did about decorating. Jim stared at him for a moment, before saying, "I don't. And before you ask, I don't give presents and I don't want any. As far as I'm concerned, December 25th is just an ordinary day."

That was Blair's first clue that Jim did not like the Christmas season, and his second clue was the discovery that Jim always refused to consider Christmas Day a holiday. If it fell on a weekday, he went in to work as usual. (There was always a skeleton staff on duty.) Nobody knew why - not his fellow workers, not his boss; and he didn't give even his guide and best friend a reason. Simon usually arranged a Christmas meal for the Major Crime team, but Jim had always made his apologies; he had never gone to one of those 'celebratory' meals. Nor did he participate in Major Crimes' 'secret Santa' gift-exchange; he simply told Rhonda to leave him out of it.

William's second wife, Grace, left him after her first experience of an Ellison 'Christmas'. Jim's wife left him after _her_ first experience of an Ellison 'Christmas', when Jim flatly refused to accompany her to her family's Christmas party, gave her nothing in the way of a present and, without even opening it, told her to return her present to him to the shop and get her money back.

***

Blair had grown up falling in with whatever the people he happened to be living with celebrated - or didn't celebrate - so he had no problem with Jim's stated preference. Simon invited him to the PD Christmas meal, with the warning that Jim never went; when he told Jim he had been given the invitation, Jim just shrugged. "Go if you want," he said. "Just don't tell me about it when you get home."

So Blair went, and if his enjoyment of it was slightly muted by Jim's absence, he gave no obvious sign of it.

He cheerfully accompanied Jim to the PD on December 25th. They spent part of the morning catching up on paperwork, but then a phone call came in.

A woman's body had been found by a neighbor.

***

Jim's expression - that had been uncompromisingly grim all morning - was, if possible, even grimmer now.

There were already two black and whites at the address they had been given - a very run-down area. One of the patrol officers accompanied them up the stairs, saying, "Mrs. Newman and her son Matt moved here about two years ago. One of the neighbors kept the kid when he got home from school, while his mother was still at work. When he couldn't waken her this morning, he went to the neighbor, who checked, realized Mrs. Newman had been killed and called it in."

They went into the house.

The body lay on the bed, and it was obvious that the woman had been assaulted; there was severe bruising on her face and neck. Jim slipped on a pair of latex gloves, and pulled the bedclothes down.

She was naked; and her body was badly bruised.

Jim frowned. There were several possible scenarios; she was a prostitute who had been attacked by a client, though he thought that unlikely with her son in the house; with a neighbor who took the boy in, if she was a prostitute she'd be more likely to leave him with the neighbor and take her clients to a cheap hotel. Perhaps the attacker had broken in, beaten and then possibly raped her; or it was someone she knew, had willingly slept with, who for some reason had then assaulted her.

He pulled the blankets up around her shoulders again, and glanced at the cop. "Where is the son?"

"With Mrs. Fenwick, the neighbor who called it in."

Jim nodded. "I'll have to speak to him... Blair!"

Blair had been quietly checking the room, and clearly finding nothing. "Yes?"

"We need to go and see the Newman kid - Matt, you said?" he asked the officer, who nodded.

In the house next door, the woman was holding the child, who was sobbing quietly. There was another woman beside her, one Jim recognized as being from Social Services.

They looked up. "Jim - you're investigating this?"

"Yes, Donna."

"Be gentle with him," she murmured. "He's just eight."

He nodded, but she was surprised that he didn't turn the questioning over to Blair.

"Hello, Matt. I'm Jim."

The child blinked tear-filled eyes at him.

"Can you tell me - did your Mom have a visitor last night?"

Matt nodded. "My Dad. I... He walked out and left us ages ago. That was when we came here. But somehow he found us. I don't know why he wanted to, not when... " He sniffed. "I was always afraid of him, so I hid... he was with Mom for a while, then I think he came looking for me, but where I was hiding... " He was silent for a moment, then he said, "Mom's dead, isn't she."

Jim nodded. "I'm sorry, Matt."

"But it's Christmas... "

"Bad things happen even on days that should be good," he said. "My Mom died on Christmas Day when I was eight, so I know how you feel."

Blair stiffened, knowing that he had learned something important about Jim.

Jim glanced at Donna, a question in his eyes.

"He'll go into care, but there's nowhere for him today - and Mrs. Fenwick can't help; she's going to visit her daughter." There was a defeated note in her voice.

"Blair and I will take him," Jim said. "As I said, I know from my own experience... "

Blair nodded. "You might not want him going to live with two men, but you know Jim... and Jim understands."

"Get things organized for us," Jim said. "We'll foster him."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. I understand his situation in a way nobody else would. And if his Dad comes looking for him - he'll be safe with us."


End file.
